Hope We'd Make It
by Reiko Katsura
Summary: Harry Potter wanted to believe that he and Draco would make it. He still does. HP/DM Slash. One-shot.


**Hope We'd Make It**

**_by Reiko Katsura_**

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco, _side_: Ron/Hermione, _mentioned_: Draco/others

**Rating: **R

**Genre: **Angst, Romance

**Warnings: **Harry POV, polygamous H/D relationship

**Summary: **Harry wanted to believe that he and Draco would make it. He still does.

**Challenge:**This was written for **Slythindor100's** Special Valentines Challenge, and based loosely on prompt #1:_ "Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."  
-St. Augustine_

**Author's Note: *****Please read this carefully*** You'll need to do a bit of site-juggling for this fic. I drew a picture for this particular story. In other words, that picture is a _part _of this story. You'll need to see it to understand the ending. I'll mark the space that the pic was supposed to be and provide a link for the art piece (to my LJ) where the art is posted at the end of the story. Is it necessary to have to do all that? No. But I'd think you'd like to if only to know what the hell happened at the end. That being said, this story wasn't beta-ed and have fun reading!

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I knew exactly the type of person Draco Malfoy was when I asked him out. He was snobbish, conceited, spoiled, rude, vile, and—above all—a total whore. Draco and I worked together, see, as partners for the Aurors for over five years. If anyone was witness to his countless liaisons and dates and one-offs, it was me. Draco liked sex—he made it quite clear, on countless occasions, that he'd never allow any man to tie him down. It was for that reason that I refrained for so many years from telling him how I felt: that I loved him.

*

Even when we started dating—a result of too many firewhiskey's on my part—at the age of 25, he refused to settle down. He was still so very young, he said, and didn't want to be stuck in a monogamous relationship. And who was I to take away his freedom? We made an agreement, then; he'd sleep with whomever, never in our flat and never on the receiving side, and I'd be the one he came home to, the one he said "I love you" to, the only one he'd allow to stick a cock up his arse and fuck him senseless. Those conditions had never kept me exactly comfortable, but to have Draco in my arms every night… well, a little pain on my part was worth it.

*

I'd always figured that after a while Draco would get sick of sleeping around. That he'd realize that I was all he'd need, that I was all he'd _want_. He didn't, though, even after five years of being together. The jealousy I used to feel whenever he came home smelling of another man had been replaced by sheer tiredness and contempt. Thoughts about whether or not he'd continue to sleep around for the rest of our lives, or if he'd ever settle down with me, started to plague my head like a pestilence. I wanted so much more from him, more than he ever wanted to give, but how could I not want it anyway? How could I not see my best friend's getting married and having children and growing closer each day that passed, and not want the same? Whether or not I wanted that more than I wanted Draco… well, I hadn't yet decided.

*

Draco had broken his promise. We had been having sex when I noticed it: cum, not from me, was caked deep in his arse, dried like chips of white paint. It was as if everything I'd been feeling—all my anger, jealousy, sadness, worries, fears, hopelessness—from the past years came crashing out, pouring out of my every pore so that I couldn't even see straight. I'd hexed him, hard and good, and while he was still recovering tossed some belongings into a bag and stormed out. I asked Hermione and Ron if I could crash at their place for a few days and they'd asked me, eyes still red from being roused from sleep at midnight, what Draco had done, that time. I didn't even know what to tell them. What was I supposed to have said, anyway? That Draco had cheated on me? Because, I finally realized, he'd been doing that the entire time. How could I have let things go on for as long as they had? How could I have let it even _begin_? I felt so ashamed I couldn't even meet their eyes. I don't think I'd ever cried that hard in my entire life.

*

Living with a married couple with three kids was tiring. I don't think the word "privacy" or "personal space" or "sleeping-afer-8" were words that existed in the Weasley household. I stayed with Ron and Hermione for a week before I left and rented out a room at the Leaky Cauldron. I'd taken my well-earned personal days, which they on their own accumulated to a little more than a month off, and sulked and wallowed in my dirty little hotel room from morning to night, eating only when my stomach started to actually hurt. It was on the third day there that Draco finally came to visit. Not to my pleasure, he at least looked every bit as horrible as I did. Well, maybe less. He'd apologized profusely, promised it would never happen again, told me he loved me and wanted me back—but by then it was useless. I'd already started seeing our relationship in a new light. I'd already started telling myself, through the pain, that I deserved better, that I deserved to be more than someone's kept man—even if I loved that someone with all my heart. Draco had looked at me pitifully, his beautiful grey eyes wide and moist, and it had taken everything I had to stand my ground and tell him that unless he gave me what I wanted, what I should have had all that time, he had no business anywhere near me. He'd need to "think about it" was what he said, and then apparated out before I could start crying again. It felt great to know, really, that our love was something that needed to be considered. Fucking great.

*

Draco had come the next day very early in the morning, shoulders straight and jaw set and wearing his best set of robes as if he were about to go to war. He said, once he filed into my room, that he'd try, give monogamy a shot, because he couldn't bear to be without me. I'd told him, just as sternly, that if he fucked us up again it would be over, and I promised that time I wouldn't take him back. We'd shaken on it, then embraced on it, then kissed on it, which led to the one of the hottest bouts of sex we'd ever had. As I held Draco in my arms that night, so tightly that I was surprised he hadn't woken up, I trembled. I prayed that he would stick to his word, that he wouldn't mess things up, and that he would be able to, finally, look at me and see me as the only man he'd ever need. When I became too tired to think anymore, and my sight began to swim, I closed my eyes and held him tight and with all my heart hoped that we would make it.

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_[Art Inserted Here]_

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25 years later.

We did.

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**A/N: **Ok everyone, you can view the artwork right here: http: // reikokatsura . livejournal . com / 27152 . html # cutid1 (no spaces). Or, if you'd really rather not go to all that trouble, you can simply google "reikokatsura" and "livejournal", go to my page, and just scroll down to where you see [Fic + Art: Hope We'd Make It].

Anyways! I hope you all liked this little bit of angst. And the art, for that matter. Happy February!


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